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Update on Omicron

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Re: Update on Omicron

#261

Post by digislave »

xg15 wrote: post #178
Hermel wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the virus could ever be stopped with today's vaccines, even if everyone was vaccinated. Data from fully or almost fully vaccinated countries clearly show that this doesn't eliminate the virus. It of course helps, but we have to depart from the idea that the "zero covid" strategies work.

I mean, there are Zero Covid strategies that work, see China or New Zealand. The problem is just that those measures are so drastic that many countries would probably not accept them. The goal in western countries is to get to the "endemic phase" of the infection - i.e. "live with the virus". That's all well and good, unfortunately this requires the disease to become significantly less deadly than it still is. We're…

There is no way that China has achieved Zero Covid. How would that be possible? Have they denied any trvel for the last 1.5 years? I would suspect a "Report Zero Covid" strategy instead.

Re: Update on Omicron

#262

Post by cletus »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #238
cletus wrote: post #108

No one still thinks Covid is ever going away, right? It's likely something we'll just have to deal with like the flu. For one thing, there are now Covid-19 reservoirs in various animal populations. It's hard to say how this will evolve but there's a lot of evolutionary pressure on viruses to become more transmissible and less deadly. Why less deadly? Because a virus that is too deadly will likely die. It's why the Sp…

> Why less deadly? Because a virus that is too deadly will likely die. It's why the Spanish flu is now just H1N1. Given how slowly SARS-CoV-2 kills you (if it does), there isn't any selection pressure to do it less often. Indeed, my understanding is that no human virus has evolved to become less virulent. It is unclear why H1N1 disappeared a few years after it emerged as the Spanish flu, most likely it simply ran out…

Think about it this way: what is the evolutionary pressure for it to become more lethal? Particularly if we accept your premise that such lethality occurs after it spreads.

Now a given strain may mutate to become more deadly but why would such a strain become dominant?

Even if all this occurs after the virus can spread, consider the human reaction to it. You have two diseases: one is essentially the common cold, the other is basically Ebola. Even if those events occur after transmission, the response to each disease is going to be wildly different. The common cold will just be tolerated and managed. There will be no lockdowns. The second will have the military enforcing lockdowns and curfews combined with hard travel borders and checkpoints. There would be forced vaccination in some places and severe restrictions on the voluntarily unvaccinated.

Just the human reaction alone will tend to make the common cold version more dominant over a sufficiently long time frame.

Re: Update on Omicron

#263

Post by kubav »

sxg wrote: post #240
kubav wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. I am 30 and already got 2 jabs. I will probably need to get 3rd in less than 6 months to be able to normally live (covid pass in Europe). Risk to person of my age is low even without vaccine. I got myself vaccinated only to help the society (and to get covid pass) but I do not feel that I am helping if they are wasting vaccines on people like me instead of sending them to people who actually need them.…

Vaccination is less of a supply problem and more of a distribution and demand problem. One vaccine administered in the western world does not mean one vaccine has been made unavailable to the third world. It's similar to food scarcity, the primary problem is poor infrastructure making distribution networks extremely inefficient.

Distribution in the country is not the problem (look what "Medecins sans frontires" do). Mostly 3rd world countries do not have medical standards as high as in first world so you can instruct taxi drivers how to jab people and give them trunk full of vaccines and they will empty it in the same day without problems. And it will be still safe enough as those vaccines are applied to muscles.

I think it is the problem of supply and demand because EU and even more US* are making vaccines way more expensive.

* EU is buying vaccines together to not compete for price between states but the price is probably way higher than African countries can pay. Imagine the whole world teamed up together and vulnerable people would be vaccinated at the same time before young healthy people as it is done now in EU.

Re: Update on Omicron

#264

Post by dhxybdj »

r721 wrote: post #162
0des wrote: post #56

When did it get renamed to "Omicron"? Also, dammit, now it's a thing, and it's got its own little soundbite-able name instead of "B.1.1.529".

>In a statement provided to the AP, the WHO said it skipped nu for clarity and xi to avoid causing offense generally. >“‘Nu’ is too easily confounded with ‘new,’ and ‘Xi’ was not used because it is a common last name,” the WHO said, adding that the agency’s “best practices for naming disease suggest avoiding ‘causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.’” >Those best pra…

Xi is most definitely not a common last name, I’ve yet to encounter a single person with that surname in China besides Xi Jinping. Mu (穆) on the other hand is far more common and yet it wasn’t skipped.

If you look at most common surnames https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames then Mu is ranked at 188, whereas Xi is nowhere to be found. Xi was solely skipped due to Xi Jinping.

Re: Update on Omicron

#265

Post by ropable »

luxuryballs wrote: post #248
kubav wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. I am 30 and already got 2 jabs. I will probably need to get 3rd in less than 6 months to be able to normally live (covid pass in Europe). Risk to person of my age is low even without vaccine. I got myself vaccinated only to help the society (and to get covid pass) but I do not feel that I am helping if they are wasting vaccines on people like me instead of sending them to people who actually need them.…

You’re not helping anyone else by getting vaccinated, it doesn’t prevent transmission. If anything it could make transmission more likely because if it makes symptoms less severe (the only thing it is suppose to do) then you might not realize you’re sick and should stay home.

This statement is incorrect. Being vaccinated does indeed help others. People who are vaccinated against the virus are enormously less likely to manifest dangerous symptoms and require hospital care, thereby reducing the overall demand for medical resources.

Re: Update on Omicron

#266

Post by dunefox »

luxuryballs wrote: post #248
kubav wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. I am 30 and already got 2 jabs. I will probably need to get 3rd in less than 6 months to be able to normally live (covid pass in Europe). Risk to person of my age is low even without vaccine. I got myself vaccinated only to help the society (and to get covid pass) but I do not feel that I am helping if they are wasting vaccines on people like me instead of sending them to people who actually need them.…

You’re not helping anyone else by getting vaccinated, it doesn’t prevent transmission. If anything it could make transmission more likely because if it makes symptoms less severe (the only thing it is suppose to do) then you might not realize you’re sick and should stay home.

You help by not taking up beds in hospitals.

Re: Update on Omicron

#267

Post by adrr »

djbusby wrote: post #182
Hermel wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the virus could ever be stopped with today's vaccines, even if everyone was vaccinated. Data from fully or almost fully vaccinated countries clearly show that this doesn't eliminate the virus. It of course helps, but we have to depart from the idea that the "zero covid" strategies work.

We got to zero polio. What's stopping it from happening here?

Polio was a 1st world issue.

"It's a paradox of public health that being too clean can sometimes lead to disease. For centuries, infants were routinely exposed to the poliovirus in their unsanitary living conditions. Polio rarely causes paralysis in infants, partly because of the maternal antibodies still present in their systems. In the 1900s, many countries cleaned up their water and sanitation systems, and houses in more affluent communities were routinely cleaned, reducing exposure to microbes. By the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, new mothers, especially those in the middle class, had no antibodies in their immune systems to pass on to their children. When children were exposed to the poliovirus in later years, they were defenseless against the disease."

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rxforsurvival/series/diseases/polio...

Re: Update on Omicron

#268

Post by flerovium »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #208
aetherspawn wrote: post #154

Ok, my 2 cents. This happened because there isn’t enough vaccines in third world countries. They can’t afford them. The moral of the story? It doesn’t matter if you 100% vaccinate your western country. We’re all in this together. When COVID spreads in Africa and makes a new strain, it may as well be on your own doorstep. The world needs to step up and distribute vaccines to every corner of the globe, for FREE, or we’…

There is no way to eradicate covid everywhere, simultaneously or otherwise. It's now widely accepted that the virus continues to circulate even in vaccinated people. Besides, you are not even going to vaccinate 100% of any western country, let alone all of them or the entire world. Milder mutation are what is actually going to make the virus endemic, like it happened to the Spanish flu. Reports from the South African…

This is a misconception: it is not known that the virus will become less deadly over time; in fact, there is good reason to believe that it may become more deadly because virulence is positively associated with tramissibility.

https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/will-covid-19-evolve-be-mo...

Re: Update on Omicron

#269

Post by throwaway894345 »

aetherspawn wrote: post #154

Ok, my 2 cents. This happened because there isn’t enough vaccines in third world countries. They can’t afford them. The moral of the story? It doesn’t matter if you 100% vaccinate your western country. We’re all in this together. When COVID spreads in Africa and makes a new strain, it may as well be on your own doorstep. The world needs to step up and distribute vaccines to every corner of the globe, for FREE, or we’…

I agree with this—not only do we have the usual moral imperative to help others, but it’s actually in our primary interest. The US has actually done exceedingly well here, having delivered more donations than all other countries combined (not sure if this is still the case; I haven’t checked in a couple of months). But there’s still more work to do and other rich countries need to get on board quickly.

Apropos of nothing, I was just listening to NPR and they had someone on to talk about how we don’t donate vaccines to third world countries because they are predominantly non-white and how this is “vaccine apartheid” rather than the more likely “rich countries provide for their own citizens before providing for others” sort of thing. Is there any legitimacy to this, or is it just racemongering?

Re: Update on Omicron

#270

Post by brokensegue »

heywherelogingo wrote: post #258

"very mild symptoms" - can we move on now?

> Severity of disease: It is not yet clear whether infection with Omicron causes more severe disease compared to infections with other variants, including Delta. Preliminary data suggests that there are increasing rates of hospitalization in South Africa, but this may be due to increasing overall numbers of people becoming infected

We don't know for sure yet one way or another.

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